China's Ministry of Health on Monday issued temporary regulations on human organ transplants that explicitly ban the sale of organs and introduce a set of medical standards for organ transplants. 

Mao Qun'an, the ministry's spokesman, said that the temporary regulations ban any kind of organ dealing, require medical institutions to obtain written agreements from donors before any transplant procedure is conducted, and donors are entitled to change their minds at any time.

The regulations, effective from July 1, require medical institutions to register at provincial level health departments. Class Three A hospitals, China's top ranking comprehensive hospitals, can register their services if they have doctors with clinical organ transplant qualifications, the relevant equipment, a good management system and a medical ethics committee.

Unregistered medical institutions cannot carry out organ transplants and qualified doctors with clinical organ transplant training are not to practice in unregistered hospitals.

Mao said that registration will be canceled if patients who receive the transplant do not survive a certain number of years. Further, if the ministry finds any registered medical institutions to be in actual fact unqualified, the ministry will cancel the registration and punish those responsible.

The regulations also require organ transplant cases to be discussed by the ethics committee and the legitimacy of the procedure and organ/s in question confirmed by the committee. Operations can only be carried out with the committee's approval.

It is estimated that at least two million patients in China need organ transplants each year but only up to 20,000 transplants can be conducted because of a shortage of organs.

(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2006)